Thank you very much, Peter.
Good evening, members. I apologize for taking some time to connect. We did a test call a couple of hours ago that went without difficulty. We spent the last 40 or 50 minutes, but we're finally there.
I was going to make a few opening comments about my involvement with this committee, and then I will welcome questions. I will try to cover Mr. Chiu's question towards the end of my presentation.
Very briefly, what staggered me as a New Zealand parliamentarian was the extent of abuse that actually occurs in many democracies around the world. We take it for granted down here, and I suspect in Canada you are relatively uninformed, unless you have a special interest in the human rights, of some of the abuses that occur to elected representatives right around the world.
I recall being in Geneva and talking to our embassy there on an IPU visit before I was involved in this committee. Collectively, our staff said that of all the work the IPU does, the most valuable is that of this committee.
Subsequent to that, my first involvement was, as a former speaker, to be asked to join a mission to the Maldives. We travelled there, spent a couple of days there and spoke to opposition MPs. Some of them were imprisoned, incarcerated in awful conditions. There were MPs who were not being advised when Parliament was sitting because they were opposition MPs; others were arrested when they entered the Parliament building, etc.
We concluded our report, we published the report to IPU, and they disseminated it fairly widely. I know it received a lot of local publicity in the Maldives. A subsequent election meant that this regime was thrown out. The last time I was involved, the democracy there was operating significantly better.
I guess my then membership of the committee occurred straight after that. It is a committee of 10 members. They are elected at the plenary sessions. All you have to show is an interest in human rights and human right abuses of members of Parliament. If the plenary elects you, you're on the committee. It's a five-year term.
I will move to Mr. Chiu's point about how we hear about the abuses that are occurring.
We receive complaints. One of the processes we address straight away in the meetings we have is whether the case meets the criteria for us to continue further investigation.
We're dealing with countries such as Venezuela, Turkey, Cambodia, these being some of the obvious ones. My last involvement with this committee before I retired as a member of Parliament was a trip to Turkey, where there were clearly significant abuses occurring to people who had been democratically elected.
They pass the criteria as to whether they are eligible for us to further investigate; we then will meet aggrieved parliamentarians, if they are travelling to these plenary sessions. On the odd occasion, we put together a mission, if we're able to go to these countries, and make the necessary inquiries.
One of the real spotlights of our reports then is our presentation to the plenaries, which used to—prior to COVID—occur every two years. These presentations are a session towards the end of the plenary; they are on day four or day five.
Most delegates who have travelled to those plenaries take a huge amount of interest in the work the committee is doing and therefore become far more well-informed of some of the abuses that occur.
I think that's a very quick rep, because I realize I'm late in getting to the call, but I'm only too happy to take any questions.